This is the official blog of ex-Sgt Ellie Bloggs. I was a real live police constable then sergeant for twelve years, on the real live front line of England. I'm now a real live non-police person. All the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't (or didn't) pay my salary.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

I'm so worried...

With yet another teenager charged with the murder of a yet younger teenager, is there really something wrong with society, or are we just hearing about these murders more because they have come to signify "a sign of the times". Or perhaps our more worldly society is just more affected by the death of young black kids than they were say, twenty years ago, when no one bothered to report the murders?There isn't much gang crime in Blandmore. What there is consists of kids who don't really know what a gang is. This makes it a lot easier to police them.

In general, if an armed robbery is thought to have been committed by either the Blandmore Boys or BBB1 (the postcode for Blandmore doubles as the name of its hardest core gang), we just log onto Facebook and download confessions by all the gang members. Sadly we can't use any of this in court, but it's funny to see their solicitor's face in interview.

I do worry about the state of the world today. I worry that no one seems to have any kind of answer to the rise in gun and knife crime. And I worry that despite decades of experience running one of the busiest airports in the world, no one seems able to launch a new terminal without a typically British fiasco of delays, cancellations and piles of unclaimed baggage.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in all good bookstores and online.

18 Comments:

Virtually every black youth knifed to death has no father at home. The complete collapse of the patriarchal family system is almost entirely to blame.

When black culture grows up and sufficient (black-It's a shared experience you know) role models in popular culture espouse family values, there may be a chance. Instead they will plough on with the bling bling, boring, boring rap scene, which shares a greater responsibility for its feckless lifestyle.

Community leaders and local politicians in inner city areas, progressive lefties in the teaching and social services share responsibilty.The "all family variants are viable" clap trap promoted and encouraged the division.

With technical full employment (explain the UK importing jobs) no argument for social exclusion passes muster. Don’t whinge about cultural barriers; it does not seem to affect the latest job hungry imports.

The honest truth is it affects small, controllable, enclaves of metro city areas.

What do the leafy areas of the UK and under populated areas of Wales and Scotland care?

Why should the rest bother anymore? It’s not happening in your area, or Gadgets.

Cultural apartied happened; the truth is they did it to themselves.

I await with interest the arrival of interested parties to turn it around, but don't hold your breath

Can I ask why "confessions" obtained via Facebook are inadmissible? They're not gained under duress and they're in full public view. Or is there some loophole like not being able to prove who actually wrote it?

Most of these sites are hosted on US servers, and the process of acquiring even the electronic details of the posters etc. in order to prove which computer was used to write the message (which has to go through our own RIPA system, as it is considered to be 'surveillance', so budget at least 3 months for that alone) is long-winded and by the time you get the results, the English ISP's no longer have a name and address to match with the computer IP address they've provided. Even if you can get a link, the computer itself has to be examined - up to 6 months turnaround on that, where I am in any case.

Then, the time and processes needed for getting a statement and exhibits from the States through our own and the US's procedures - yikes. For those who advocate the death penalty, the offender will probably have met his own through natural causes by the time that's achieved. Sadly, it's not as simple as exhibiting the printouts as your own.

'Social networking' sites are a nightmare, and, in my opinion, cause nothing but grief. And whilst they can be investigated, it's an incredible amount of work for what information you actually need, which, dependant on the offence (although I doubt it'd be fobbed off in respect of a murder), may be denied to you on grounds of time, cost or difficulty by your own departments or theirs.

localplod - so, what you're saying is that red tape, bureaucracy, lawyers and form-filling prevent you from using what amounts to a publically-available confession in a court of law to prosecute someone you (and they) know is guilty of a crime?

Sounds about right in this day and age. Seems like everything is done to protect the guilty and make your lives somewhere between Hell and pointless.

And people wonder why I'm looking at emigrating elsewhere. No. Wait, they don't. They all *know*.

Mosher, you made a good point, and i think Dave made the same point right at the begining of his book, "I've changed the names and dates to protect the guilty - that's the name of the game, these days, after all".

What kind of a messed up world do we live in where criminals are treated better than law abiding, decent people.

What we need is a 21st century Guy Fawkes, as every member of our 'government' is self serving and corrupt.

Police work and teaching share a couple of major attributes: the people "up top" who tell the people on the front line what to do aren't qualified to do that front line job.

Is the secretary of education - or any high-ranking member of the Dep. of Educ. - an ex-teacher? Don't think so. And the Home Secretary, has he ever walked the beat or tried to make a conviction stick against a dodgy lawyer's best efforts?

It explains all the ridiculous rules put forward by both organisations and forced on those who are trying their best to do a good job in the face of a thousand idiots in an office somewhere thinking they know better than a trained teacher / PC.

I'm not a teacher, but my other half is as are a few of my friends. And it drives me nuts seeing what they have to do to keep the bean counters in work. Believe me, your two organisations have a lot in common in the "being screwed over" department.

Uniform, you are right. The progressive lefties and the liberal elite might be interested if there was a chance to criticise the Police and family values along the way. Cherie Blair is apparently going to sit in judgement on the issue, but she is getting £50,000 for it.(- Cherie Blair is to present a series of programmes on gun and knife crime for Channel 4.She is understood to be receiving £50,000 for fronting The Truth About Street Weapons, five two-hour programmes due to air live over a week in June. Mrs Blair's "deep concern" about the problem has led her to take up the role for Channel 4. -)I am torn between not watching on the basis that it will be complete bo**ocks and watching to see how right I was.Mosher, strange enough Jackie Smith used to be a teacher.I am not sure if that is a valid qualification for the Home Secs job, but after Jack Straw, Charles Clark, David Blunkett and John Reid, there may not have been a lot left.A lot of the problem is that the people at 'up top' who are making decisions have no life experience

Whenever naughty youth comes up is it not traditional to quote that ancient Greek who wittered on about the lack of respect of youth way back then.This is to prove that nothing changes and so nothing need be done.Add a ritual charge of racism and that should settle things.

It's a bit pathetic that you guys whine about how long processes take. Never heard of email? Fax machine? It's not actually as if someone is contemplating the matter for three months, its sitting in internal mail or in a pile on someone's desk. So fax it to them, ring them to tell them it is on the machine, discuss it over the phone, they can sign it and fax it back. Job done.

You remember when you were moving house and you discovered you didn't have the right *kind* of consent for when you knocked the kitchen through? And you had to spend the day on the phone on the last day because the normal turnaround is 6-8 weeks? But it only actually took eight or nine phone calls most of which were "is the solicitor back from lunch" or "OMG give me back the friendly, understanding, helpful Lithuanian man instead of this broom-arsed jobsworth Briton". You got it done the same day.

If it still takes three months to get a RIPA authorisation, just get a ****ing warrant. They still work.

O/T but can I just say well done to the coppers who collared my 63 year old father in law yesterday whose insurance had run out by a week. We know how much paperwork you have to do so we were glad two of you could get out too wait in a car looking for dodgy motorists.

Jacqui Smith is too back date the Police pay rise with immediate effect. Its on the BBC web site. She also said you will be getting a 6% increase this year with a one off payment depending on number of years worked!Gordon Brown was quoted as saying he was delighted and hoped the Police would be happy with the latest offer.